In the first quarter of 2015, 294 million domain names had been registered.[17] A large fraction of them are in the com TLD, which as of December 21, 2014, had 115.6 million domain names,[18] including 11.9 million online business and e-commerce sites, 4.3 million entertainment sites, 3.1 million finance related sites, and 1.8 million sports sites.[19] As of July 2012 the com TLD had more registrations than all of the ccTLDs combined.[20]
A domain name consists of one or more labels, each of which is formed from the set of ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens (a-z, A-Z, 0-9, -), but not starting or ending with a hyphen. The labels are case-insensitive; for example, 'label' is equivalent to 'Label' or 'LABEL'. In the textual representation of a domain name, the labels are separated by a full stop (period).
ICANN publishes the complete list of TLD registries and domain name registrars. Registrant information associated with domain names is maintained in an online database accessible with the WHOIS protocol. For most of the 250 country code top-level domains (ccTLDs), the domain registries maintain the WHOIS (Registrant, name servers, expiration dates, etc.) information.

Note: You can order domain transfer once you are already a SiteGround customer. The one time-charge for domain transfer is equal to the price for new domain registration (see tabs Popular Domains, Country Domains, Special Domains). Depending on the TLD and domain registrar policies, there are differences in the domain expiration term after the transfer (refer to link See all domains you can transfer).

While looking at domains, you might come across the name "ICANN" -- the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. This organization accredits some registrars that agree to a set of operational standards, but ICANN accreditation isn't required to sell domains, nor is it necessarily a sign of a company with good customer service. In fact, ICANN plays no role in the sale of many top-level domains, including country-specific domains.

Domains that are indexed on Google and highly ranked are particularly attractive to traders. Other SEO aspects, such as backlink profiles or the search volume of the keywords in domain names, also play a significant role in appraising value. Design can also positively affect the price of a domain. Short and succinct names that are easy to remember are especially advantageous. Endings are further factors that should be taken into account. Top-level domains (TLDs) such as .com or .org are by far the most sought-after endings.

I’ve tried to be charitable to Verisign in my reading of Site-Finder-gate. Even then it seems quite clear that they were deep within the grey areas of their contract with ICANN, and that they knowingly acted against the spirit of the Internet that they’d been entrusted to build. That said, I respect the hustle — Verisign were, and continue to be, a publicly traded company with a responsibility to deliver value to their shareholders, and this quasi-bait-and-switch was a pretty inspired way to do it.
There are numerous domain name registrars. Listed below are just a few, along with my comments, if I know anything about them. Note that the domain name industry is highly competitive, with prices wildly fluctuating throughout the year, every year, so it's impossible to really mention accurate prices below unless I spend all my time updating this page. Please check their sites for the latest rates. All prices below are in US dollars.
Even when you register and pay for your domain name, you won't necessarily be able to use the name for several hours or even a few days. The domain must propagate, meaning that the official domain name registry must be updated with your website's Domain Name System information. That's something that occurs on the backend without any need of input from you.
Now it’s time to see if your domain name choices are available. Once you’ve come up with a few strong domain candidates, it’s time to plug them into Namecheap’s domain name search bar. We will search available domain names for you and let you know if your first choice of second-level domain or TLD is available. We’ll also suggest some alternate TLDs you might try if your first domain choice isn’t available.